After The Rain
by Ash Light
Summary: "When she was fourteen, and very foolish, she thought she might possibly fall in love with Draco Malfoy. Now she doesn't know what to think." After the Battle of Hogwarts, Astoria discovers that forgiveness is far harder than it sounds.


**After The Rain**

A/N: Something reasonably depressing for after the war. Set Post-DH - let me know what you think!

Some pieces of this won't make sense unless you've read _Ferret Boy and the Mouthy Little Brat._ And yes, that is me shamelessly fic-pimping my other work...

**1.**

It's an ending. When it comes down to it, that's all that truly matters – it's over.

Some people are shouting, laughing, crying with sheer relief; the Patil sisters have even begun to dance with beautiful movements, unspeakably lovely. Some sit in dumb, bombarded silence. For the first time since she's even set foot in Hogwarts the four tables aren't segregated through houses, but crowded into one wonderful, bewildering hodgepodge of students and parents and teachers and strangers, people flowing from one group to another like a river, as if dying to lay eyes on each and every person in the room simply to know that they're all here, all alive. Centaurs laugh with brilliant majesty, the sound of merpeople's eerie, joyful screech sounds somewhere beyond the walls. There's a _giant_ laughing down at them from somewhere up above.

Glorious, that's the only word for it. Simply glorious. Astoria's squashed in between Mother and Daphne at what was once the Hufflepuff table, watching houselves dance up and down the Great Hall. Felix, her dear own little brother is already getting tipsy on Butterbeer, Daphne's eyes are smudged red, and everyone is making sure not to mention the fact that, when the latest news about collaborators who sided alongside Death Eaters came in, their father's name was on the list. It seems numbly unimportant now. They all know that in the end it will come back to haunt them, but for now the worst is over. They're free.

It's over.

Grinning, reaching to smooth Felix's dark hair over his eyes – she doesn't _care_ if he was sorted into Slytherin and spent much of his time jabbing blood-traitors with his wand simply because he didn't know any better, he's _hers_ – she glances across the room, past laughter and celebration and joy, to the three people hunched close together, not speaking, barely moving. Lucius Malfoy, a figure of nightmare from her childhood when he was simply Mister Malfoy or Sir, has his head buried deep against his hand, and his wife continues to chew at her nails. Draco somewhere between them, so, so much gaunter than he used to be.

She has to see. Morbid curiosity it might be, but she's interested, and she has to know.

Slipping away, pressing a hand briefly against Daphne's shoulder, Astoria pads nimbly around the rejoicing hoards just as Lucius and Narcissa get to their feet and begin to walk away, the barest hint of a murmur passing between them. The man's fingers begin to slip into his wife's open palm, and that surprises her. Of all the things she believes the Malfoys capable of, love is not among them.

There's a rumour that when Harry Potter fought and sacrificed himself to the Dark Lord, Narcissa Malfoy was the one who allowed the pretence to continue. Who saved his life. It's not her actions Astoria's interested, it's her son's.

Draco doesn't look up when she sits next to him.

"Good night, isn't it?"

He doesn't answer; she feels her cheeks flush. Of course it's not a bloody good night, not for him. Not for the Malfoys. God knows what's going to happen to them now, now that He's been destroyed and their allegiance is out in the open.

Or maybe not. Maybe something changed. You never know. He's a git and a bastard and a bully, but Astoria's always been convinced that somewhere, at some point, Draco Malfoy's had the potential in him to do good. That's why she has to know. Has to know why he was here, in the castle, has to know whether there's any chance…

She sighs gently, and plucks a sugar mouse from a bulging pile that rests on the table, snaps it in half so brusquely that a shrill squeak emits from the syrupy confection. Draco snorts with reluctant humour.

"Want some?" When he complies, they dig in with quiet determination, chewing silently on the sugar amid the echoing noise. When he swallows down the last mouthful she gains a single, terrible spark of warmth in her stomach, enough to lay her hand against his sleeve. "I took down Jugson, you know?"

And that was an accident, she's ready to admit it, one of the last students being hustled towards the exit when those Death Eaters, those _people_ managed to pound their way in. And there was screaming, and yelling, and Romilda Vane in nervous hysterics, and one downright _huge_ figure looming in front of them, and – _Stupefy!_ – she hadn't even meant to say it. The figure went down, they carried on running. It most likely bought them ten seconds of borrowed time before he was up again. Still, she's quite proud of herself.

"Nice."

And that's enough of a reaction at her triumph for her to lean forward eagerly, to press her fingers tighter against his arm. "I heard that you were already here – you know, when we were allowed to come back into Hogwarts. That you didn't evacuate with the rest of the Slytherins." She leans even closer, a small, private little part of her prays that Pansy Parkinson is nowhere near. "Did you fight? You know, alongside us?"

Merlin, but she hopes so. He's not _that_ bad, surely, he wouldn't fight alongside Death Eaters and giants and other creatures against his own classmates, he wouldn't keep on supporting Him after all that happened, surely? He wouldn't –

Draco snorts, the sound dark and scathing, and slumps back against the wall. The gesture seems oddly hopeless. "You really are dim, aren't you Greengrass?" Almost pityingly, he reaches out to tug against a sprig of her curly hair. "If you actually thought – " He breaks off, stiffly, shakes his head.

"We had to bring Harry Potter to – to Him."

There's a sudden, building roar in her ears; she hadn't even noticed when it began.

"After Easter – what happened – I just – " Some distant part of her realises that she's never heard Draco stutter before. "I had to try – don't you get it, if I hadn't done – my family…"

She doesn't care that his words are faltering, or that he's showing something that in anyone else would be considered remorse, or even that he appears to be asking for some kind of absolution from her. These factors would have meant something to her, once upon a time. And now, now it was nothing.

He'd tried to turn Harry Potter in, tried to support _Him._ He'd sided with the Death Eaters after all they'd done. He'd done…everything that she'd prayed he wouldn't. He'd made his choice, and oh, but she knew it was the wrong one. She'd looked at those people, the weak and the thuggish and the arrogant who hurt innocents, who hurt the vulnerable, and felt horror pierce her stomach. She'd listened to the horror stories and even when it seemed as if the Malfoys would stick to the Dark Lord until death, she had always been sure that at the last moment, Draco would change. He was supposed to have been better than that. Different to them. And now look at him.

"Greengrass?" It's his turn to nudge her, fingers poking almost childishly against her arm. "Greengrass, c'mon – are you planning to turn around any time soon?"

Suddenly she feels sick.

"'Tor?"

When she turns to look at him, her eyes are blank with shock. "I hope you and your family rot in Azkaban."

**2.**

She continues to study. There's OWLs, after all, she can't risk failing simply because the darkest wizard ever to exist has been defeated and the entire wizarding world is free once more. Pouring over books, Astoria ploughs her way through Charms, through Potions, over tome upon tome of dusty old ancient magical history. While her classmates laugh and play in the sun, she reads.

When she gets to Transfiguration, however, she finds she cannot stop. Continues to study, flicks page over page until one textbook is finished, and then the next. She borrows books from the library, from older classmates, until her head is buzzing with magical theory that even the seventh years haven't covered yet. The art of transforming into something else, she realises, is suddenly fascinating to her.

Astoria listens more than she talks nowadays. Survivors' conversations are of immense importance to her. Above all she wants to know how people can carry on, after all that's happened.

("Really Ron, must you be so utterly insufferable?"

"Me? _Me?_ _I'm_ insufferable?"

"How could you _possibly_ say to Dean that I 'mauled you' before the battle? I do not 'maul'!"

"It was a joke! Hermione? Hermione, what're you doing with your wand? Hermione!")

Rumour has it that the two had finally kissed, straight before the last battle – a school's a breeding place for rumour, and besides, there was quite a substantial pool going at one point on how long it would take for the pair to get their act together – and it seems that, if anything, affection breeds further aggravation. Hermione Granger's known for her brains, Astoria's sure she knows what to do.

("Dammit Hermione! I'm going to have boils in...painful places for _weeks_!"

"You shouldn't be such a git then, should you?")

Draco encouraged her to put five galleons on Weasley and Granger finally, as he put it, 'sucking each other's faces off before they leave Hogwarts' back in her third year. She supposes she's entitled to collect her winnings now.

It's painful, how many of her everyday memories he infiltrates.

("Bloody hell Draco, you're impossible!"

"Rich coming from you, 'Tor.")

**3.**

Daphne corners her late one afternoon, as she's hastening to polish off a Potions essay. The trial has come and gone. Seven years in Azkaban. Their father will still be imprisoned by the time they've all left Hogwarts.

She finds it doesn't matter as much as she thought it would. It doesn't hurt. Father was always a shadow beneath the imposing presence of their grandfather; it doesn't even shame her to realise he'll be scarcely missed.

If he couldn't face the punishment, he shouldn't have become involved in the first place.

It's worrying how dispassionate she's become, after all this time. But then maybe compassion is another casualty of war.

**4.**

Snape's funeral is on an unusually cold day, windy to the point that their vision is obscured by moisture as the air bites at their eyes. Not many come; on either side, he was not a popular man. It's held at Hogwarts, no-one seems to argue.

Harry Potter is there, sat at the front alongside McGonnagall and Hagrid. Odd, considering their history; still, she'd heard it was him who cleared Snape's name after everything that happened. Daphne, biting, sarcastic, toughened Daphne is almost too weak to go, despite the fact he was her favourite teacher – she and Felix flank her on either side, hands clutching at their big sister's arms.

They wouldn't even be there if it wasn't for her.

That family – _his_ family – sit tightly together, away from everyone else. Daphne murmurs that their trial will be coming soon, pauses as if expecting a reaction. She says nothing.

The service is short, brief, to the point. If anyone cries, she doesn't notice.

In spite of everything, she feels a stab of pity when they begin to disperse. Poor Professor Snape, so cold, so alone. He was a hero at the end they say, he was working for them all along.

She nearly bumps into Draco at the door. His hand pushes out to steady her, skin brushes against skin. Her eyes stare straight ahead of her; what little can be seen in the corner of her eye is all dark suit and pale looks. When the air becomes too stifling she breaks into a run, down through the corridors until her breath cuts cold as a knife in her lungs.

(Was he trying to say something, just before she started to run?)

**5.**

"You look," Daphne murmurs softly one evening, "as if you've lost something."

"What am I supposed to have lost?"

"You tell me."

**6.**

They were never friends, after all. Not _close_. A childish bond, perhaps an adolescent infatuation, back when she thought it was cool to be cruel.

Nothing worth crying over.

**7.**

Felix has started having nightmares, they tell her with just a hint of disapproval, as if it's his own fault for straying too close to the dark. It's Sluggy who pads up to her, curiously nimble beneath his ridiculous girth, and suggests that maybe it would be best if she goes to the Slytherin dorms and stays with him for a little while, as poor Daphne's already coming down with what appears to be a nervous case of Sighing Sickness, all psychosomatic really, and my dear, in times like this, who really needs to worry about houses when your little brother is so distraught?

He's not that bad, not really.

She takes to slipping into the Slytherin common room unobtrusively, the password hot in her head from Slughorn, and sneaking through to the second year dorms before anyone notices her presence. She sits by her little brother's bedside and strokes the dark hair back from his eyes while other second years doze themselves into a coma. Sometimes he insists on talking, late into the night, silly, stupid conversations like how many different flavours are in a Bertie Botts bag, or what house elves talk about amongst themselves. Sometimes he drifts into oblivion, staring dark into the corners of the room, and she consents to hold his hand, fingers curling against his.

He was always their father's favourite, a darling little boy whose spindly build and thin breathing problems could never make him any less in their parents' eyes. He'll miss the man more than she will.

**8.**

Two cousins, Squibs both, from Mother's side of the family, are found in the basement of their home in Yorkshire the morning after her first exam, green-eyed, glass-faced. Their names are added to the list of the dead.

**9.**

The stairs in the dungeons go _down_ to the dorms, not _up_, leaving the bedrooms even more dank, cold, chilling. Green light from each lantern spills out onto each bed with a killing-curse emerald-eyed glow. Each night Felix eventually drifts off to sleep and she realises it's far and away past midnight, the time always passes so quickly down here.

One night when she's hastening back up the stairs to the common room they bump into each other, she coming up, he going down, bodies knocking almost comically. The fact that he's standing two steps above her only serves to make him taller; and that's not fair.

"How's the kid?"

"Fine."

She can forgive a lot of things, but she can never forgive him for taking Felix under his wing.

"It's late." He jerks his head up toward the echoing green glow of the common room, where the last stragglers are most likely heading to bed. "You want me to walk you back to the Ravenclaw tower? Pretty girl walking around Hogwarts in the dark; your sister'll have another nervous breakdown if anything happens to you. Not that you'd be able to tell the difference."

(_Go away._)

"No thanks."

"Escorted back to your door by the Malfoy heir, some girls would kill for that."

The words are sardonic, self-mocking, deliberately so. She'd have laughed, two or three years ago. Now she wants to be sick.

Their proximity shouldn't matter to her.

"Stop it."

He exhales sharply. In the shadows of the stairwell, all she can make out is the outline of his face. "You're not making this easy."

"Good."

"I'm trying to be conciliatory here."

"You're a piece of work."

"Thanks darling."

That's enough. An endearment, however sarcastically spoken, only serves to make her hate this a little more. And maybe she's being a hypocrite, a pureblood whose father is even now curling up within his lonely cell at Azkaban and who ran away from the Battle at Hogwarts with scarcely a backward glance. And yet – and yet – she pushes past, striding up the stairs with her nose in the air until a hand around her wrist spins her around.

Now it's her that stands two steps above him; their heads are now level. She'd have been utterly infuriated by this, once upon a time. In the glow from the common room his face looks undeniably lost.

"Come on 'Tor. If I apologised would that help?"

"Not particularly."

He grimaces. They're being too flippant about this, speaking in clever sound bites, because to speak the truth is too painful and by all rights they're no longer close enough to feel entitlement into knowing what each other feels. They were never that close. She doesn't even know why he's trying. "I didn't have a choice. You do know that, don't you? He would have killed me, my family, and I _didn't have a choice_."

But then, she tells herself determinedly, the reason her father's sentence is for seven years and not life is because he supported the Death Eaters, helped them where he could, and despite all their threats and cajoling and power, he never joined them.

Everything is a choice.

"You had a choice. You bloody well always had a choice."

His fingers still press cold against her skin, she barely notices when they slip from her wrist to curl uncertainly around her hand.

"That's easy for you to say, isn't it?"

"It's still true."

"Alright, _alright_, I stuffed up, alright? I admit it, I – _He_ – it was wrong. And stupid. There, you happy now?"

No. It's alarming to hear him admit he's wrong, because in over ten years he'd never admitted fault, never apologised, but it's nowhere near enough. She thought he was better than that, surprisingly, and now that she's been proved wrong and everyone who said everything about Draco is right, she feels strangely betrayed.

She doesn't even know why he's trying to apologise to her. Not sure he knows either.

"Don't be impossible, 'Tor." This when she doesn't reply, only stares with fierce certainty at the cracked stone of the ceiling arcing over the stairwell. There's thin, filmy algae beginning to spread over it, delicate as a dragonfly's wing. "You know, if you wanted someone to look after you, _all_ this year, you only had to ask…"

The offer's poisonous, she nearly chokes on the hearing of it. Down in the depths of the dorm there's the sound of stirring, and the unmistakeable cry of a twelve year old baby crying in his sleep. They both freeze, hearts rising into throats. Mumbles of another second year dozily waking and mumbling back comfort isn't enough to quell her nerves, and she automatically moves forward. When her feet skid against the flat stone of the steps she's pitched forward into the dark. It's only a pair of arms and a tall body that can accommodate hers that breaks the fall. Warmth envelopes her.

They rock briefly, teetering on the brink.

"Go on then," he mutters, somewhere into the dark now that her face is pressed awkwardly, unflatteringly, against his shoulder. They're both staring in opposite directions now. One hand tenses against her hair. She's almost certain there's that callous edge to his voice once again, cold and hard as jade. "Say you wouldn't have done exactly the same thing if it was your family on the line."

Her eyes blink unseeingly over the straight line of his suit shoulder, black of course. Fairy tales were never like this.

"We'll never know, will we?" Astoria replies calmly, and instead of rushing to Felix's side, pulls out from his arms and steadily makes her way back up the cold, unforgiving flight of stairs.

**10.**

She starts to sleep erratically. Stares up at the roof of her bed for hours on end, then ends up dozing through Arithmancy revison until ink begins to stain her face. Madame Pomfrey whips up sleeping draughts; they all taste foul and bitter. The dorm is stiflingly hot.

(One time, back in her second year when she still felt the keen sting of heartbreak and sobbed buckets because a boyfriend of three weeks had dumped her, he very patiently led her into the Slytherin boys dorm and let her cry on his shoulder before dosing her with a decent swig of Firewhisky, nature's own grief solution. The sparks fizzled down through her insides and lit up her belly, blazed away the cold dank of the room. They played Exploding Snap until the other Slytherins returned, allowed her to curl up on the leather sofa in the common room with Daphne's white cat curled luxuriously in her lap and Draco's jokes ringing in her ears whenever her lips tugged downwards. His robes smelt a little bit of the Honeydukes sweets that his mother would send, and the cold air of Quidditch practice, and the soft tang of ink, the expensive kind. Maybe cologne, when he got older, though it's hard to recall now. When Pansy Parkinson started making comments about a little Ravenclaw brat crawling back to her tower, he simply laughed at her.)

Strangely, in the depths of the night when insomnia tugs at her, it's her father she thinks of, mainly. He must be lonely in Azkaban. She's surprised to find she misses him, Daddy, the figure in absentia; of all the cuts, that was the one she did not expect.

Waking moments are haunted by the lost; when she starts to dream it's in clear-cut black and white, and she makes herself forget what it was she was dreaming of.

(In her fourth year she discovered he'd prompted the boyfriend to break up with her – prompted, silly word, _persuaded_ would be the term he'd use –out of some callous mixture of obligation to Daphne and sheer design towards mischief. It's the sort of thing he'd do.)

**11.**

Fourteen was a long time ago, when a kiss under the mistletoe filled her world for weeks on end, stole her breath and imagination in one damning swoop.

_maybe this is why they call it falling, you can't choose when or why or who, it's not a leap but a __**fall**_.

She turns another page in her Potions textbook and pushes her thoughts from her head.

**12.**

One night, crushed between exams for Charms and Arithmancy, she comes down to the Slytherin dorms to see Draco and Felix playing Exploding Snap together. Her brother is small, tiny in fact, runs in the family, and is nestled between white pillow and white pillow like a miniature doll, dark and fey as a lad from the faeries. He's laughing, gurgling with chuckles. Draco lays a card down on the others, piled neatly on Felix's bedcovers, with the air of one laying down a gambit. When the whole lot blows up with a crackling gust of sparks and lights the edges of his white-blond hair on fire, they both laugh.

**13.**

They say Harry Potter himself is going to testify in defence of the Malfoy trial, speak up for what Narcissa did in the Forbidden Forest. It's postponed to the first shining week of July, ostensibly because so many Death Eaters, more dangerous than the battered Malfoys, have to be tried first; rumours quickly spread that it's because so many are rushing forward to testify against the family. But Harry Potter of all people, how can he defend a family that symbolised everything he fought against?

His principles have obviously taken quite a battering; how could he stand being in the same room as he defends them?

"I don't understand how he can do it," she mutters late one night, knee deep in History of Magic revision.

Hermione Granger glances from across the table, skims her fingers lightly over a well-worn copy of Ancient Runes. NEWTs have all but been forgotten, no-one's expected to think of them; for the heroes who saved their lives, it's impossible to think that they'll bother with a mundane exam. And yet here she is. They've become unofficial study partners over the days, the only ones still frequenting the library. "I'm not entirely sure either. I suppose he owes Narcissa his life. And Harry thinks everyone deserves a chance to change. He even offered Voldemort the chance, you know, right at the end." Draco made her life a living hell during their years at school, and yet for all that, she's smiling when she raises her head. "I expect Draco and his family will never let themselves get that close to the edge again." When Astoria exhales slowly, the older girl frowns. "Are you alright? You look – tired."

She looks dreadful, and knows it. Astoria grimaces. "Now that it's over, why don't I feel any better?"

Hermione shrugs, looking a little more understanding then should be strictly necessary. "Forgiving people – it sometimes helps you more than it helps them. You know?"

**14.**

There's far less of them in Hogwarts nowadays, now that so many parents have collected their children to the warm nest of home; nonetheless, McGonnagall holds a small gathering in the Entrance Hall the day after her exams finish. It's a select few, and her eyes recognise many of them. Daphne and Felix stand together, carbon copies; behind them there's the narrow figure of Theodore Nott nestled out of harm's way. Nessa Avery, a chubby third-year with a spiral of golden curls, a fifth year whose name is barely pronounceable. Gregory Goyle, oddly lonely, stands awkwardly as if being one whole is unthinkable, as if part of a pair is how it's always been. Draco stands stiff in the foreground.

All children of Death Eaters, she realises in a breath, or offspring of those who actively helped them.

McGonnagall is speaking quietly, in that clipped way of hers; Astoria continue to scan. It's not just Slytherins, she realises, but a few Ravenclaws with lowered eyes, a pair of blushing Hufflepuffs, even a second year Gryffindor whose cheeks are stained with shameful tears. The Headmistress's words are clear. No blame is to be appropriated. Whatever a parent has done, or might have done, we are only responsible – her eyes fix briefly on Draco Malfoy – for our own actions.

Strange, how much relief they all feel when she leaves.

Not everyone is so understanding. As they all drift outside, a group of Hufflepuffs, sixth years, pass by; muttering beneath their breath. One of them spits. Tommy Bates, part of her memory reminds her, both parents blasted to smithereens in a Death Eater raid just outside Diagon Alley. When Goyle swings a fist that collides with an errant shoulder, a reflex, someone swears. There's a jostle, someone raises a hand. A wand flicks out. A stone is plucked from the ground and thrown, Draco's arm suddenly collides straight into her.

"Stop it! _Stop it_!"

Harry Potter, striding over the grass like an avenging angel, wand already in his hand and pointed straight at the Hufflepuff boys. Hermione Granger's shrieking, the third member of the trio, Ron Weasley, looks somehow less convinced, but joins them no matter. Nessa Avery is beginning to cry, Nott's wand is shaking in his hand. And Astoria is rigid at the back of the group, trembling but unhurt, because the projectile has soared straight past and Draco's arm has pushed her straight behind him, a simple, unthinking shield.

**15.**

"Why do people make the choices they do?" Felix mumbles late one night.

Astoria groans, tightens her jaw shut to prevent the yawn from stretching her entire face out of kilter. "If that's a joke you'll have to tell me the punchline."

"No joke." After all, her brother's an innocent, for all that he's a Slytherin and cunning comes in the form of widened baby eyes and a trembling lower lip, but for now he's utterly sincere. The pack of cards lies cradled in his hand, a golden treasure. "I'm curious."

God knows. Why do people do what they do? What makes a young man sell his soul doing the most unimaginable things, and then step in to shield a classmate simply because he felt like it? And then what makes another testify in defence of one who made his life a living hell throughout the entirety of his school life, attempt to spend his days of freedom saving another man from a lifetime of imprisonment? Forgiveness is a strange art, and sometimes she thinks that some magic is both stranger and stronger than others.

She's only sixteen. She really shouldn't have to deal with this sort of thing.

**16.**

The first day of July, shining and bright and oddly cold, she walks through the halls and the corridors and out into the blazing sun, where the green rolls out beneath the castle and creeps into the forest, and Draco's sitting on the steps leading down from the castle. A hunched symphony of dark and white and shadow. Reparations are taking their time, even with magic; Professor Dumbledore would have said that some wounds go too deep for even magic to heal. It's been raining the night before, and the air is fresh with lushness and wet and new beginnings. When she sits down next to him he shifts, a little, to accommodate her presence.

"When you say you're sorry – do you _mean_ it, or are you just saying because it suddenly became too real and scary?"

A splutter. "Most people would just say 'you're forgiven, Draco'."

"I'm a Ravenclaw, we're painfully logical." She laughs, the first time in two months that the sound hasn't tasted hollow in her mouth. "So?"

"Dunno."

"Did you actually believe what He sai – " No. Not yet, not the time to go questioning ideologies and beliefs, not now. "Would you have been happy? If He'd won, would you and your parents have stayed with him?"

"Maybe." His head turns down, tracing the outline of tailored shoes with intricate fascination, pitches his voice so low that she can barely hear the second, whispered word.

Nonetheless, it's as if a knot has loosened in her chest.

Draco smoothes his hands against his trousers once, twice, and she realises with something akin to shock that this is the first time he's ever felt awkward about expressing his beliefs, ever been uncertain toward what those beliefs _were_. "I don't – I just – " He breaks off irritably. "They saved my life, you know, when C-Crabbe set the fire and couldn't really deal – they helped. Me and Goyle. It was…surprising." He pauses, scrunches his face so childishly you might have thought they were back in the Great Hall, over five years ago. "And really, really annoying."

She splutters, he manages a faint grin. One she hasn't seen in an age, so he looks like _Draco_ once again. Back before his father began to pull him into the dark web of his own beliefs and every grin that Malfoy bore was twisted awry with arrogance.

"You owe him."

Draco makes a face. "I know."

"You _owe_ Harry Potter."

"I know. It's horrible. It's the worst thing to come out of this whole bloody mess."

It's easy, being here with him, laughing about heroes that he doesn't even like and pointedly not talking about the future, the trial that's only a matter of days away. That comes as something of a surprise, catches her off-guard. She can see the conversation slipping to Quidditch teams and exams, and how everyone knows that Trelawney's an old basket case but by _Merlin_ she can put on an impressive show when she wants to. Anything to ease the pressure. His voice is nice too, less jarring now, less driven by sharpness and resentment. It's smoother now, deeper; and she likes that too. And he's still scared, running scared. The trial's in three days, and no-one will come near him now, and there's blood on impeccably pale Malfoy hands, and he's terrified.

On an impulse she lays her hand out between them, a little harder than she meant to, palm up, fingers outstretched.

Like a drowning man he grasps back, almost hard enough to hurt.

It's silly to think it, a girlish romantic thought straight from the pages of her _Enchanted Encounters_ series, but it feels as if they've both been hurtling towards this moment. Maybe it would have happened differently – maybe a wand slips or a curse is uttered differently, and Daphne or Lucius or Felix or Narcissa lies dead in a flash of green. Maybe Draco finds his courage early and joins the underground resistance as they blaze against the Carrows; maybe she crumbles and begins turning in muggle-borns and blood-traitors like so many of her fellows. Maybe he _is_ the one to utter that single curse that night on the tallest tower; and Dumbledore dies and Snape is venerated as a hero. Maybe even – ridiculous thought! – that foolish kiss in her third year sparks off something completely different and Pansy is forgotten and for the next two and a half years they sit beside each other at mealtimes, holding hands and sharing jokes. Maybe, maybe. Whatever might have happened, it all boils down to this one moment, their hands tightened together until red marks appear against their skin and Draco's breath is horribly, gutturally hoarse in her ears.

He's trying not to cry; Astoria realises with a lurch. Without thinking, her free hand presses against his shoulder, and then slips down to press like a benediction against the place beneath his tie. Black silk, of course.

(_'Merlin, Draco, do you __**ever**__ wear anything but black?'_

'_It makes me look good. Admit it Greengrass, you like it.'_

'_You're an arse.'_

'_You're a sweetheart.')_

Somehow their heads have leant against each other – no prelude to any embrace, don't be silly, this is merely a rescue for a friend – until she can nearly feel the outline of his hair and bones trace against her own skull. And he's trembling and she's trying not to sob, and their eyes have slammed shut simply from the desire not to see the world as it's become, or as it was, and they're both scared, and sometimes the only way to get past where you are is to move forward even if you don't know where to. And she does care about him, damnably, she does, she does.

And his mouth, burning as a firebrand, fierce against hers.

"Draco?"

Maybe she lingers just a little too long, and maybe he pulls away just a little too quickly. Pansy Parkinson's voice, calling out for her boyfriend – if Draco's unpopular then Pansy's doubly so, people give her a wide berth in the corridors now, and she's most likely craving company – from within the castle. And Daphne too, a little way behind, calling for her. He looks strangely guilty.

Her hand's still resting against his heart.

"Tori?"

"Draco; where _are_ you?"

Her hand breaks away from his. It's only a matter of time before their classmates come and find them, and right now she doesn't need that. She scrabbles uncertainly to her feet, makes the point of not looking back at him. Her fingers absent-mindedly brush against her lips.

Within seconds she's already walking briskly towards the forest, bag clutched tightly in her hands. She's late for Care of Magical Creatures.

"'Tor. Astoria, wait!"

It's the first time in nearly three years he's called her by her full name. Maybe that means something.

And maybe it doesn't.

When she was fourteen, and very foolish, she thought she might possibly fall in love with Draco Malfoy. Now she doesn't know what to think.


End file.
